Welcome to the Project Wikispace for Greenacres School: Shoshana Cooper, Carole Phillips, William Yang
Research Questions / Areas of interest
How can we help our students become more critical as they research online?
How do we evaluate how students are doing as they research online?
How do we assess students' productivity as they research online?
What skills can we teach them to become more productive online?
How can we link this process to our curriculum and make it meaningful for students and teachers?
How we began...
Critical Evaluation Lesson
In an effort to begin teaching students how to be more critical as they research online, we began by showing students the "Velcro Crop" web site. We wanted to demonstrate how information on the Internet can be misleading and incorrect during a library session. The teachers displayed the Velcro Crop web site and began discussing the page as if the information were "fact." After a while, the teachers then began asking, "What is the website about?" and "How do we know this is true or not?" The class discussed various ideas regarding authorship and ideas related to evaluating where the information was coming from. Students were then paired up and began looking at searching for "great white shark" sites to determine the purpose of the website, who is the author, and discuss reliability.
Reflection:
During the mini-lesson, we noticed that students did not question the information displayed by the teachers despite the fact that some students looked puzzled when looking at the site. We began to think about the ways classrooms are traditionally structured in a way that students become accepting recipients of information and therefore never question authority nor the information presented by the teacher. We wondered about the great power accorded to teachers within such structures. We also came to the realization that, depending on the teacher's disposition towards control in the classroom, the development on being a "healthy skeptic" as Dr. Coiro describes could be greatly affected.
As the children began to look at the first great white shark site that came up on WebPath Express they began to discover where they had to look to determine whose site they were looking at. The first site, besides having information about the sharks, was trying to sell diving trips in cages that were surrounded by great white sharks. The kids were very excited as they began to determine the purpose of the site. Our hope was that they would take this experience and begin to be more critical as they used other sites and determine the author's purpose.
We also discovered that our work could not be done in one or even a couple of lesson's on critical evaluation. They needed to be applied or integrated in class studies. We then began to look at a unit to see if we could incorporate similar lessons throughout the unit. We decided to apply these ideas to an author study project that the class was going to engage in.
Author Study Project
We were conscious of the inquiry research process and tried to frame the project around it using the Big 6 research process or the modified version of the Capstone Project format. Learning about the Author (Questioning)
The children selected an author and developed their own questions to learn more about the author and what influences their writing. We paired the students up as we recognize the importance of social learning when using on-line sources. The students developed their questions with the classroom teacher prior to coming to the computer lab or the library. This provided students with a purpose to their searching and helped us to redirect their searches when they found themselves lost or distracted. HANDOUT:
"Librarything" activity (Locating information)
We were curious how the students were doing locating specific sites on-line. Their goal was to find five titles written by their author. We told them to go to the "librarything" website but did not give them the URL. We followed the advice of Dr. Coiro who suggested that by giving the students the specific address to the site prevents students from developing the necessary skills or strategies for locating information online. It was fascinating to watch how they went about locating the site and we discovered that there were many ways of reaching the same goal. We had a huge range of responses. Some went right to the address bar and typed in librarything.com and went straight to the website. Some went to librarything.org with the assumption that as teachers we would naturally give them a dot org to go to. Some went to Webpath Express as they had been trained to use that vehicle for on-line searches. They had no luck using Webpath Expressso they eventually had to use a different search engine. Some used Google and found the site quickly. We learned something new from one group. They typed in "Library thing" with the space in the address bar and got right to the site! We never cease to be amazed by the new things we learn to do on the net! We also noticed that students began to look at each other's screens and talk to each other to verify ideas. We had a sharing time where we shared the different methods that the children used to locate the site.
Gather information from several sources about their author (Critical evaluation)
After the library thing activity, students began searching on their own to get more information on their authors. They were asked to record the web site title, the URL, and information they discovered on the web site to reinforce the prior lesson on critical evaluation.
We definitely noticed that the children were exploring a range of sites as they researched their author. They were being much more critical of the sites they were looking at and examining each site for purpose and for its author. This led to many discussions about how to make these determinations. We observed that students were more conscious of looking up who or what organization developed the information on the site. We were so excited that despite our worries that the online strategies we taught them would not transfer, actually DID transfer in this case!
Author Study Wiki (Synthesize and Communication)
As part of a culminating activity and to explore new areas of communication, we decided to apply some of our newfound knowledge on wikis to this project. Students were given the task to publish their findings, discuss or create a review of one of the author's books, and if possible, think of ways to engage readers to interact with their author page. We also asked the students to be mindful of ways that made their collaborative work more efficient which we will record for future projects. We do not have any data on this yet as students recently began this project.Once the project is complete, we will make the pages available to the public. If you are interested, their pages are located at: https://4cauthorstudyproject.wikispaces.com/ You can ask for permission to join the space once you have registered.
One important glitch we found with wikis is that two people cannot simultaneously work on the page. We ran into this problem with this page last night!!!! (I think some of our ideas got lost in various drafts!) It will be interesting to see how the students will develop their strategies for effectively dealing with this issue.
Overall Reflection
Before beginning our New Literacies course, we realized as teachers that we have been making many assumptions about how children are using online sources. We had been giving them little guidance for using the internet, yet we were expecting them to be productive when researching online. We were assuming that the skills we were giving them for reading print would carry over when they were reading online. When we took a step back and reflected on how our students were doing on-line we soon realized that we are going to have to provide them with the tools that they would need to be effective and productive researchers on-line. The challenge, as we all know, is how do we provide our students with these tools. Our major goal with our author study unit was to begin to create lessons that would build on what our students know and provide them with the skills to be more effective users of on-line materials and sources.
We realize that:
1. We are learning as we go and as on-line materials evolve so must our instruction.
2. Our students do come to the table with a range of skills (some quite sophisticated) that we must use and build on. This reinforced for us the importance of team work allowing for that crucial social component of on-line learning.
3. Many of the skills that we are working on with our students need to be reinforced and discussed many times for a number of the students.
For future exploration:
We know that students need to continually develop strategies and skills to refine their online reading comprehension. One way of addressing this might be to develop an Internet Reading Workshop model to implement for next year. A consistent model for online research instruction would facilitate our ablity to develop a rubric for assessment. We were not able to consistently assess our students as we developed and redeveloped models for instruction this year. A model could be adapted from the work of Dr. Donald Leu, Dr. Julie Coiro and the New Literacies Research team and implemented throughout the year so that consistent data could be collected and an assessment could be made.
Research Questions / Areas of interest
How can we help our students become more critical as they research online?How do we evaluate how students are doing as they research online?
How do we assess students' productivity as they research online?
What skills can we teach them to become more productive online?
How can we link this process to our curriculum and make it meaningful for students and teachers?
How we began...
Critical Evaluation LessonIn an effort to begin teaching students how to be more critical as they research online, we began by showing students the "Velcro Crop" web site. We wanted to demonstrate how information on the Internet can be misleading and incorrect during a library session. The teachers displayed the Velcro Crop web site and began discussing the page as if the information were "fact." After a while, the teachers then began asking, "What is the website about?" and "How do we know this is true or not?" The class discussed various ideas regarding authorship and ideas related to evaluating where the information was coming from. Students were then paired up and began looking at searching for "great white shark" sites to determine the purpose of the website, who is the author, and discuss reliability.
HANDOUT:
Reflection:
During the mini-lesson, we noticed that students did not question the information displayed by the teachers despite the fact that some students looked puzzled when looking at the site. We began to think about the ways classrooms are traditionally structured in a way that students become accepting recipients of information and therefore never question authority nor the information presented by the teacher. We wondered about the great power accorded to teachers within such structures. We also came to the realization that, depending on the teacher's disposition towards control in the classroom, the development on being a "healthy skeptic" as Dr. Coiro describes could be greatly affected.
As the children began to look at the first great white shark site that came up on WebPath Express they began to discover where they had to look to determine whose site they were looking at. The first site, besides having information about the sharks, was trying to sell diving trips in cages that were surrounded by great white sharks. The kids were very excited as they began to determine the purpose of the site. Our hope was that they would take this experience and begin to be more critical as they used other sites and determine the author's purpose.
We also discovered that our work could not be done in one or even a couple of lesson's on critical evaluation. They needed to be applied or integrated in class studies. We then began to look at a unit to see if we could incorporate similar lessons throughout the unit. We decided to apply these ideas to an author study project that the class was going to engage in.
Author Study Project
We were conscious of the inquiry research process and tried to frame the project around it using the Big 6 research process or the modified version of the Capstone Project format.Learning about the Author (Questioning)
The children selected an author and developed their own questions to learn more about the author and what influences their writing. We paired the students up as we recognize the importance of social learning when using on-line sources. The students developed their questions with the classroom teacher prior to coming to the computer lab or the library. This provided students with a purpose to their searching and helped us to redirect their searches when they found themselves lost or distracted.
HANDOUT:
"Librarything" activity (Locating information)
We were curious how the students were doing locating specific sites on-line. Their goal was to find five titles written by their author. We told them to go to the "librarything" website but did not give them the URL. We followed the advice of Dr. Coiro who suggested that by giving the students the specific address to the site prevents students from developing the necessary skills or strategies for locating information online. It was fascinating to watch how they went about locating the site and we discovered that there were many ways of reaching the same goal. We had a huge range of responses. Some went right to the address bar and typed in librarything.com and went straight to the website. Some went to librarything.org with the assumption that as teachers we would naturally give them a dot org to go to. Some went to Webpath Express as they had been trained to use that vehicle for on-line searches. They had no luck using Webpath Express so they eventually had to use a different search engine. Some used Google and found the site quickly. We learned something new from one group. They typed in "Library thing" with the space in the address bar and got right to the site! We never cease to be amazed by the new things we learn to do on the net! We also noticed that students began to look at each other's screens and talk to each other to verify ideas. We had a sharing time where we shared the different methods that the children used to locate the site.
HANDOUT:
Gather information from several sources about their author (Critical evaluation)
After the library thing activity, students began searching on their own to get more information on their authors. They were asked to record the web site title, the URL, and information they discovered on the web site to reinforce the prior lesson on critical evaluation.
We definitely noticed that the children were exploring a range of sites as they researched their author. They were being much more critical of the sites they were looking at and examining each site for purpose and for its author. This led to many discussions about how to make these determinations. We observed that students were more conscious of looking up who or what organization developed the information on the site. We were so excited that despite our worries that the online strategies we taught them would not transfer, actually DID transfer in this case!
HANDOUT:
Author Study Wiki (Synthesize and Communication)
As part of a culminating activity and to explore new areas of communication, we decided to apply some of our newfound knowledge on wikis to this project. Students were given the task to publish their findings, discuss or create a review of one of the author's books, and if possible, think of ways to engage readers to interact with their author page. We also asked the students to be mindful of ways that made their collaborative work more efficient which we will record for future projects. We do not have any data on this yet as students recently began this project. Once the project is complete, we will make the pages available to the public. If you are interested, their pages are located at: https://4cauthorstudyproject.wikispaces.com/ You can ask for permission to join the space once you have registered.
One important glitch we found with wikis is that two people cannot simultaneously work on the page. We ran into this problem with this page last night!!!! (I think some of our ideas got lost in various drafts!) It will be interesting to see how the students will develop their strategies for effectively dealing with this issue.
Overall Reflection
Before beginning our New Literacies course, we realized as teachers that we have been making many assumptions about how children are using online sources. We had been giving them little guidance for using the internet, yet we were expecting them to be productive when researching online. We were assuming that the skills we were giving them for reading print would carry over when they were reading online. When we took a step back and reflected on how our students were doing on-line we soon realized that we are going to have to provide them with the tools that they would need to be effective and productive researchers on-line. The challenge, as we all know, is how do we provide our students with these tools. Our major goal with our author study unit was to begin to create lessons that would build on what our students know and provide them with the skills to be more effective users of on-line materials and sources.
We realize that:
1. We are learning as we go and as on-line materials evolve so must our instruction.
2. Our students do come to the table with a range of skills (some quite sophisticated) that we must use and build on. This reinforced for us the importance of team work allowing for that crucial social component of on-line learning.
3. Many of the skills that we are working on with our students need to be reinforced and discussed many times for a number of the students.
For future exploration:
We know that students need to continually develop strategies and skills to refine their online reading comprehension. One way of addressing this might be to develop an Internet Reading Workshop model to implement for next year. A consistent model for online research instruction would facilitate our ablity to develop a rubric for assessment. We were not able to consistently assess our students as we developed and redeveloped models for instruction this year. A model could be adapted from the work of Dr. Donald Leu, Dr. Julie Coiro and the New Literacies Research team and implemented throughout the year so that consistent data could be collected and an assessment could be made.